Stargzer wrote:I often make red-nosed candy cane reindeer for my friends and co-workers. I make a special one for my Jewish friends and co-workers.

Happy Hanukkah!

Hey! That looks like the back of the modern day coin from Israel I once held so near and dear!

Speaking of...well...whatever. I came across something very interesting today while surfing the net. As you all know, I (must) have spent a lot of my life with my head up in the clouds, so I'm sure everyone else has seen all this before.

In reference of B.C. and A.D. etc. I had not seen the use of C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before Common Era) before. Nor did I know that A.D. was Anno Domini. Another new one to me is A.I. (Anno Imperium or Before(?)the Empire).
It seems to me like these new (to me) references are a way to get off the beaten path of the Gregorian calendar when needed. And are these references used more often when referring to the Jewish calendar or when the Jews are referencing something from a by-gone era? I read where scientist are using these references to kind of clear up or prevent some misunderstanding when trying to carbon date something.

Does anyone have some interesting tidbits they could add to this?

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

CE and BCE have been around a while. I remember first seeing it when I read the Reader's Digest condensed version of James A. Michener's novel The Source.

That was a good 40 or so years ago. I seem to recall that in the book the CE referred to Christian Era, not Common Era. The change was made from AD since AD stood for Anno Domini, Latin for Year of The Lord, which obviously could be more than a bit insulting to non-Christians. Since The Source is told from the viewpoint of an Israeli archeologist, BCE and CE are used.

I've always known C.E. to mean "common era" and B.C.E. as "Before (the) Common Era". Nothing to do with the Jewish dating system, these are equivalent timewise to A.D. and B.C. respectively.

It's widely used today to take an unconscious slant out of our writing, as a way to make the calendar we already use "common" to everybody without forcing a religion into a neutral topic, although Wiki says its use in English goes back three centuries:

"The English phrase "common Era" appears at least as early as 1715 in a book on astronomy, used synonymously with Christian Era and Vulgar Era. A 1759 history book uses common æra in a generic sense, to refer to the common era of the Jews."

One of the arguments noted against the use of CE/BCE is the view that it is used to "'deny the historical basis' of the dating system"; yet A.D. was apparently created for the same purpose:

"The year numbering system for the Common Era was devised by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525 to replace the Diocletian* years, because he did not wish to continue the memory of a tyrant who persecuted Christians."

Very interesting guys! I sure know that if anything out there gets my curiosity up, I can count on at least one of you to fill me in with some knowledgeable onfo in the subject! I hope other people out there know that there is a plethora of knowledge to be had here.

Oh, and slugo, I'll pass on the calendar reconciliation project. I'm not sure If I would even know where to begin...

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

By the middle of the Twentieth century it was apparent that the rotation of the Earth did not provide a sufficiently uniform time standard and in 1956 the second was redefined in terms of the annual orbital revolution of the Earth around the Sun. In 1967 the second was redefined, once again, in terms of a physical property

So it truly can be said of our forebears that "they lived in a different time".

It also tell us 2008 will be almost as long as a year can be; having had a February 29 already, it will be 24 hours plus 1 second longer that a standard year. That hasn't happened since 1992, although still stopping short of the never-ending 1972, which was even longer having had two leap seconds.

Wouldn't it be more interesting if we saved up all these leap seconds (with interest) to cash in once in a while with some calendar time off and a nice bash with music...

Slava wrote:If, as Huny suggests, the clock is going to jump ahead, wouldn't we lose the second, not gain it?

The same goes for February 29. It's a one-day pause, not a leap forward.

You're right, Slava. I guess it would be better put as "adding a second". Calling it "leaping" does sound like skipping over time and not adding to it. The years with only 28 days in February should be called the leap years. Weird...

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.